Chad Post has put up this year’s Translation Database at the halfway point (60% or so complete – download the xl here). The list is for US releases so there are a lot of books mentioned here that aren’t on it because they came out in the UK. Here are some random observations on the […]

At Project Forum’s Salon German writer Michael Krüger has a fascinating account of the numerous bonds that exist between Hungary’s great contemporary writers and Germany, of how virtually all of them speak excellent German (while, in my experience, many speak little or no English at all), and are extremely well-read in German literature. These connections, […]

This year not only will Poland and Ukraine co-host the UEFA European Football Championship, they will also collectively celebrate the 120th anniversary of the birth of Bruno Schulz. This isn’t just a friendly gesture – both countries have some claim on the brilliant writer as his Galician hometown of Drohobycz is in today’s Ukraine and […]

The Budapest Times has an article comparing the number of statues erected to notable figures with the idea that it will reveal something of “the intellectual and spiritual state of a nation.” Looking at the number of statues of writers put up since 1989 offers an interesting contrast: Albert Wass (writer): 49 Sándor Márai (writer): […]

I’m not sure where on the scale of literary ambitions getting your face on a postage stamp should be ranked, but Prague-born writer Franz Werfel has just achieved this distinction. I have to admit to never having read a word Werfel wrote, though I have read a lot about him over the years. Last summer […]

The publication of the novel Embers brought the name of Sándor Márai back into the international spotlight somewhat. Since then a number of translations into English have followed – most recently Portraits of a Marriage, which a review on Hungarian Literature Online says is actually a grouping of two Márai novels. Although known as a […]